Last updated: September 6, 2026. Some links on this page are affiliate links — if you sign up through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
How we know: we tested Systeme.io hands-on in our own free-plan account. On the Wix side we are not working from a current account: the first-hand experience described further down comes from a Wix site built about ten years ago that is still live today, and which I still fix when something breaks, and every Wix price and plan limit here comes from Wix’s published pricing page, checked on the date shown. We have not set up a new Wix store to test today’s product.
Our verdict
Both have a free plan. Only one of them can take money on it. Wix’s free tier puts your site on a Wix subdomain, shows Wix’s own branding, and cannot accept payments — you reach Core at $29.77/mo before a customer can check out. Systeme.io’s free plan accepts payments, connects a custom domain, and charges 0% in transaction fees at $0/month. If you need a designed website, Wix is the better tool and it isn’t close. If you need something that sells before you have any budget, that’s the other column.
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This comparison gets framed as a fight, and it mostly isn’t one. Wix is a website builder that has bolted selling onto the side. Systeme.io is a funnel and email platform that has bolted a website onto the side. Which one wins depends entirely on which of those two things is actually your business — and the free tiers make that difference unusually easy to see.
Pricing, side by side
List prices as of September 6, 2026, checked directly on each company’s pricing page. One thing to flag before you read the numbers: the Wix prices below are annual-billing rates. Wix’s pricing page shows them by default; month-to-month costs more. The Systeme.io prices are monthly rates, and its annual billing gives you two months free on top.
| Tier | Systeme.io | Wix |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, permanent — 3 funnels, 2,000 contacts, unlimited emails, custom domain, accepts payments, 0% fees | $0 — Wix subdomain only, Wix branding shown, cannot accept payments |
| Entry paid | $17/mo (Startup) — unlimited funnels, 5,000 contacts, 0% fees | $17.77/mo (Light, annual) — 2 GB storage, free domain for 1 year, still no payments |
| Cheapest tier that can sell | $0 (free plan) | $29.77/mo (Core, annual) — 50 GB, basic ecommerce, 5 collaborators |
| Mid | $47/mo (Webinar) — 10,000 contacts, webinars | $39.77/mo (Business, annual) — 100 GB, standard ecommerce |
| Top | $97/mo (Unlimited) — unlimited everything, 0% fees | $159.77/mo (Business Elite, annual) — unlimited storage, advanced ecommerce |
The row that decides most of this comparison is the third one. On Systeme.io, the cheapest plan that can take a customer’s money is the free one. On Wix, it’s Core at $29.77/mo billed annually — about $357 committed before your first sale. That gap doesn’t make Wix worse; it makes it a different kind of purchase. Wix expects you to have a business already. Systeme.io is built for the stretch before you do.
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Where the money actually goes
What Wix has that Systeme.io does not
- A real design canvas. Wix lets you place an element where you want it and leave it there. Systeme.io’s page editor is a block editor — fine for a sales page, frustrating the moment you have an actual visual idea.
- Websites with more than one job. Galleries, a proper blog, hundreds of templates, and an App Market covering bookings, restaurant ordering, events, and memberships. Systeme.io has a blog and pages; that’s the extent of it.
- Physical products. Inventory, shipping rules, tax, and fulfilment are native to Wix’s ecommerce tiers. Systeme.io is built for digital products and does not seriously attempt this.
- Storage. 50 GB on Core, unlimited on Business Elite. If you host video or large image libraries yourself, this matters more than any feature checklist suggests.
What Systeme.io has that Wix does not
- A free plan that can actually transact. Custom domain, payments, and 0% transaction fees at $0/month. On Wix, all three of those sit behind Core.
- Unlimited email sending on every tier, free included. Wix’s email marketing is metered and sits in a separate part of the product. On Systeme.io the list and the funnel are the same object.
- Funnels as a first-class thing. Order bumps, one-click upsells, and A/B tests are built into the checkout flow rather than added by an app.
- Courses, memberships, and an affiliate program included rather than assembled from paid apps.
Ten years on a Wix site: what it actually taught me
The first site I built was on Wix, about ten years ago — an educational content site for an online business I co-owned at the time. It is still online today, and I still have access to it and fix things when I am asked to. I want to give Wix credit for that, because it is the hardest thing to test and the easiest thing to skip in a comparison like this. In a decade, that site has not needed a rebuild, a migration, or a conversation about why it suddenly looks different. Plenty of platforms cannot say that about ten months.
The thing I liked about the editor then is still the thing Systeme.io does not have. Working in Wix felt like working in Illustrator or Photoshop — you handled the visuals directly, moved things where you wanted them, and the result was what you had just looked at. Systeme.io’s editor is competent and I build faster in it, but it is a block editor: you are choosing from arrangements, not composing one. If the way you think about a page is visual, that difference will annoy you every single day, and no feature table will warn you about it.
The other memory is less comfortable. One night I got a message saying payments on that site had stopped going through. I started working on it that evening and finished around five hours later, in the morning. I am not blaming Wix for it — I never established that the platform was the cause. The point is what that night actually consisted of: one person, alone, with a checkout that would not take money and no one to escalate to. That is the cost that never appears on a pricing page, and it is identical on every platform in this comparison. When you compare Wix and Systeme.io, you are not choosing who fixes it at 3am. You are choosing how many separate systems you will have to check before you find out what broke — and that argues for keeping the site, the checkout, and the email in one place, whichever place you pick.
One last practical note from that decade: the feature I remember hitting a paywall on was booking. Appointments and scheduling are exactly the kind of thing that feels like it should be included and is not, on either platform. If your business runs on a calendar, price that feature specifically before you pick a tier, because it will decide the tier for you.
Three questions that actually decide it
- Do you need a website, or a checkout? If someone should be able to browse, read, and look around, that’s a website — Wix. If there is one thing to buy and everything else is a distraction, that’s a funnel — Systeme.io.
- Are you shipping anything physical, or booking anyone’s time? If yes, this comparison is over: Wix, on Core or above. Systeme.io does not do inventory, shipping, or scheduling, and pretending otherwise will cost you a rebuild.
- Do you have revenue yet? If not, the honest answer is to start where selling costs $0. Systeme.io’s free plan takes payments and connects your domain; Wix’s does neither. You can always move to a designed site once something is working — that’s a much better problem than paying $357 a year to find out it isn’t.
Frequently asked questions
Does Wix have a free plan?
Yes, and it is permanent rather than a trial — but it is a shop window, not a shop. Your site sits on a Wix subdomain, Wix’s own branding is displayed on it, and it cannot accept payments. To sell anything you need the Core plan at $29.77/mo billed annually.
Can you build a real website on Systeme.io?
A simple one. You get pages, a blog, and a custom domain — included even on the free plan. What you do not get is a design canvas, an app ecosystem, or galleries. If the website is the product, this will feel thin within a week.
Which is cheaper, Systeme.io or Wix?
Systeme.io, and the gap is widest exactly where it matters most. At the point where you can first take a customer’s money, Systeme.io costs $0 and Wix costs $29.77/mo billed annually. At the top tier it’s $97/mo versus $159.77/mo. Wix is only cheaper if you compare its Light plan to Systeme.io’s Startup — and Light cannot sell anything.
Can I use Wix and Systeme.io together?
Yes, and it is a reasonable setup: keep the main site on Wix where the design work pays off, and run sales funnels, email sequences, and courses on Systeme.io, linking to them from the Wix site. You are paying for two tools, but Systeme.io’s half can start at $0 while you find out whether it earns its keep.
Is Wix good for selling online courses?
It can host them through the App Market, but courses are a bolt-on there rather than a native object. Systeme.io includes course hosting, drip scheduling, and membership access on every tier including free. If courses are the business, Wix is the harder path.
I’ve been building and maintaining websites for about ten years. The first one is still online a decade later, and I still fix it when something breaks — which is how I learned that the interesting part of any platform is not the launch, it’s year three. I co-owned that site’s business, though I am not a co-owner today; the business itself has since closed. Separately, I have also run an online store on Shopify, until the fees pushed me onto a different payment system. Today I choose the host, the theme and write the plugins that run this site, and I pay for the tools I test out of my own pocket. More on the About page, and exactly what we did and did not test in how we test.
Prices verified against each company’s public pricing page on September 6, 2026. Wix prices are its published annual-billing rates. Vendors change pricing without notice — check before you buy, and tell us if you find something out of date.
Try it yourself: Systeme.io’s free plan is permanent, not a trial — 3 funnels, 2,000 contacts, unlimited emails, a custom domain, and 0% transaction fees. Start on the free plan and find out in a weekend whether it covers what you need. (Affiliate link — see our disclosure.)